This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • Senate ready for Iraq debate – again

    Apparently the GOP will allow the Senate to debate the Iraq War today. From the Washington Times’ S.A. Miller and Christina Bellantoni;

    Senate Republicans yesterday pledged not to block the beginning of debate on a Democratic resolution that calls for all U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 2008.
        “I think we’re going to proceed because we don’t mind having the debate,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, adding that Republicans still have misgivings about the bill.
        “It moves us down the roads towards further micromanaging the troops and having a date specific for an exit,” said the Kentucky Republican. “It’s not at all clear at this point how this week’s debate on Iraq is going to play out.”

    Yeah, I say give the Democrats enough rope to hang themselves. They want to take half-measures while avoiding committing themselves to what they know is complete failure. Let ’em go.

    But Dingy Harry Reid is going to sabotage the debate by putting an early withdrawal clause in his proposal. From the DC Examiner’s Anne Flaherty;

    “Agreeing to a debate is not enough,” said Reid, D-Nev. “Republicans must heed the voices of their constituents and the overwhelming majority of Americans and vote to change the president’s flawed Iraq policy.”

    Reid is pushing a resolution that would set a target date of March 31, 2008, for the withdrawal of combat troops. The measure says U.S. forces could stay beyond that date only to protect U.S. personnel, train and equip Iraqi forces and carry out counterterrorism operations.

    I guess Harry doesn’t realize that Republicans have a constituency quite different from his, apparently. While some of the morons that keep sending Harry The Sock Puppet to the Senate may be telling him they want out of Iraq, but the folks who sent Republicans back to the Senate aren’t. If Harry’d back off from the Kool Aid for a moment, he might realize that the majority of Americans don’t want to lose in Iraq.

    After yesterday’s scathing editorial condemning the Congressional Democrat’s proposal that doesn’t take into account what will happen to the Iraqis, the Washington Post criticizes the Republicans for taking into account what will happen to the Iraqis;

    The lack of debate inside the Republican Party reflects not just loyalty to the president but also a belief that Bush’s policies still offer a chance for success in Iraq, GOP officials said. But that has done little to calm growing fears that Republicans will be punished politically unless there is a dramatic improvement in the course of the war and Americans’ perceptions about it.

    “I don’t think there is a lot of Republican anxiety that we’re doing the wrong thing and it’s hurting us,” said Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota. “There’s a lot of feeling that we’re doing the right thing and it’s killing us.”

    That’s right. It’s like I wrote yesterday, the right answer is always hard. The easy way out never works for long. But, I guess you can’t tell the baby-boomer Leftists stuff like that.

  • The easy answer is always the wrong answer

    My half-century of living has taught me one thing; the easy answer is always wrong. Whether it’s deciding what to do on a Saturday afternoon, or assaulting an armed, dug-in enemy force.  The corrollary to that would be; if it looks like the easy answer worked – duck!

    So Congressional Democrats are trying to forge an easy answer to the Iraq War and the easy answer is wrong according to the Washington Post editorial board;

    In short, the Democratic proposal to be taken up this week is an attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself. Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with “massive civilian casualties,” as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al-Qaeda establish a powerful new base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will there be a regional war that sucks in Iraqi neighbors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent: Whether or not any of those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.

    The Democrats have given not a thought to the future – what the consequences of their demands will bring. Not to the Iraqis, not to American citizens and interests. Just a timeline, at the end of which there will be no American troops in Iraq – regardless of the situation in Iraq or the world. It’s the easy answer. Crafted by simple people who’ve been cloistered in their little world of rhetoric and performance theater.

    They’ve even stripped out their provisions forbidding action against Iran (thankfully);

    Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

    Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

    Stripped it out because they’re looking for more easy answers. Rather than working with the Administration to come up with a plan that everyone can unite behind, the Democrats think that their slim majority in Congress gives them the mandate to dictate to the Administration. The president even invited them to the White House to discuss options back in January. What did he get for his effort? Snippy little punk-ass Jim Webb and his crybaby tantrum.

    And it appears that their slim majority is getting slimmer every day as the membership discovers that they didn’t win the election so they could surrender. They mistook the very loud MoveOn.org and Kos Kids as their base and they’re beginning to realize that their real base is the American voter – not some bunch of whining-ass punks with more money than brains.

    “Dingy” Harry Reid kowtowed to the “easy answer Left” on the Fox News debate issue and it seems that Democrats will not have a snowball’s chance in Nevada now. Says the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board;

    So the Democratic Party of Nevada has decided to kill its planned debate among Presidential hopefuls on Fox News, and the left-wing bloggers who precipitated the coup are whooping like Howard Dean in triumph. We wonder if Democrats have really thought through the implications of this capitulation.

    The MoveOn.org and DailyKos crowds had no doubts about their motive for seeking to bar Democrats from debating on Fox News. The left blogosphere thinks the most popular cable-news network leans too far right, and so Democrats should not legitimate it by appearing. The bloggers got their way last Friday, when Nevadan and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled his state party out of the debate. 

    * * * * *

    This may be a good strategy for the blogosphere, where the echo-chamber is often the message. But we doubt it’s the way to win the Presidency. Whatever one thinks of Fox’s news coverage, its research shows that about half its viewers age 18-54 are either Democrats or Independents. And since Fox News has about twice the audience as CNN, refusing to appear on the channel means missing a big potential voter pool. The Congressional Black Caucus was smart enough to figure this out in 2004, when it co-sponsored two Democratic debates with Fox News. (We have our own weekend show on Fox News, and Mr. Reid is welcome to come on any time.)

    The larger issue is the message this episode sends about who is running the Democratic Party — its candidates or the bloggers with pitchforks. We still recall the famous boast from the “MoveOn PAC team” in 2004 that “Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”

    Read the unbelievable process Reid arrived at his new opinion at Little Green Footballs. Apparently he conference calls the nutroots to find out what he thinks about stuff.

    Dick Cheney is still out there calling the Democrats’ bluff on their “we support the troops” hypocrisy;

    “Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it’s time to provide the money,” Mr. Cheney said during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
        Mr. Cheney said Congress is “undermining” U.S. troops when lawmakers “pursue an anti-war strategy that’s been called ‘slow bleed,’ ” prompting applause from the crowd of about 6,000 at the Washington Convention Center.

    And Hypocrit Harry Reid responds;

       The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, fired back that Mr. Cheney was “spouting overblown and overheated rhetoric directed toward the critics of his administration’s failed Iraq policy.”

    Of course we’ve not heard any overblown, overheated rhetoric from the critics of the administration, have we, Harry? More easy answers from the simpletons.

  • ETA operating in Bolivia

    Geez, I nearly skipped over this one today from the Washington Time’s Martin Arostegui;

    Members of the Basque terrorist group ETA have been conducting financial and propaganda activities in Bolivia with the knowledge of President Evo Morales, according to Spanish intelligence reports cited by the Madrid newspaper El Pais and the local press.
        Officials in Bolivia have confirmed that six members of the Basque separatist organization traveled to Bolivia and met with high-level officials of the Morales government during the past year.
        According to these officials, Mr. Morales and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, have had relations with ETA members since 2005, predating Mr. Morales’ 2006 inauguration.
        “Members of ETA have been purchasing homes and creating a new refuge for the organization in Cochabamba, where they move like fish in water,” according to El Pais.
        Cochabamba, which is Bolivia’s narcotrafficking center and contains the country’s main legal coca plantations, is a stronghold of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).
        Mr. Morales denied in a Feb. 22 press conference any links with the Basque separatist group, which has been responsible for a number of fatal bombings in Spain. “I personally don’t know anybody in ETA,” he told Bolivian reporters.

    Morales is Hugo Chavez’ man, bought and paid for with Venezuelan petro-dollars. And it seems they’re in the terrorist business now bringing in Basque evil-doers from Spain for a little rest, relaxation and giving them room to train. I guess Zapatero’s capitulation to the Islamists hasn’t insulated him from his own domestic terrorists – as recently as December 30th Basques have detonated a bomb in Madrid in spite of peace talks.

    I’ll bet cash money that the ETA will also operate anti-democracy terrorist training camps in Bolivia to destabilize Latin America at the behest of Chavez and his puppets. Just as the IRA operated training camps in Columbia (in the late 90s) and the Palestinians operated camps in Libya (in the 80s). That’s why, from the beginning of this war against terrorists, I’ve been in favor of wiping out all terrorists from ETA to Shining Path to the Moros. Screw focusing on al Qaida – kill ’em all.

    Captain’s Quarters has a report on our own hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan.

  • Democrats confused by their own “plan”

    According to Washington Time’s Christina Bellantoni, the Democrats have so many “plans” they can’t even keep them straight any more;

    Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, of the Out of Iraq Caucus could hardly keep the details straight as she attempted to excoriate the plan proposed by her Democratic leaders.
        “What they say is, if in fact there is no progress that we will pull out, if they can’t certify by October, by December, but if there is progress, if they are doing well, we will stay,” she said. “This would eventually get us out perhaps by March. The latest we would get out I guess with another progress report, or certification, by August of 1980.”

    Yup, 1980. I guess Marxist Maxine isn’t getting senile much.

    So let’s listen (or read, rather) to Nancy Pelosi’s explanation;

    After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi carefully detailed the Democrats’ suggested benchmarks and requirements for President Bush to ensure that U.S. troops are fully ready before being sent to Iraq, reporters peppered her with questions to try and get the point.
        “I’m confused,” one reporter told the speaker.
        “OK, well, let’s try again,” the California Democrat responded. “If the president cannot demonstrate that progress has been made in reaching the benchmarks which he, President Bush, has established by July 1 of 2007, we begin — the 180-day period of redeployment begins, to be finished in 180 days.”
        But, what happens between July 1 and Oct. 1? the scribe asked. 
       “If the president shows that progress is being made on July 1, say he can certify that, then we …”
        “All he has to do is say progress is being made?” the perplexed reporter interrupted.
        “Well, he has to certify and demonstrate that it has been. If he cannot — if he does that, that takes us to October 1, where we want to see the completion of those benchmarks. If that is not achieved, the 180 days begins.”
        Some in the room giggled.
        Exasperated, she concluded: “No matter what, by March 2008, the redeployment begins.”

    Got that? Me neither.

    Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal describes Peolsi’s dilemma;

    Ms. Pelosi has been backed into a tight corner over President Bush’s $100 billion request for war funding. Hoping to quell a revolt from a liberal bloc that wants out of Iraq, pronto, the speaker unveiled a new, new plan yesterday that includes a timetable for withdrawal — to begin as early as July. Ms. Pelosi needs to win this vote, the first real showdown over Iraq. But it’s becoming increasingly clear she can only do that by sacrificing her moderate wing, which opposes her plan and could pay heavily for it in next year’s election.

    Maybe it’s because the Democrats don’t know why they won the Novemeber election. They’d like to think it’s because of the war – that would be the easiest answer. But, I’ve always held that they won because republican Congress was acting too much like a Democrat Congress and it angered Republican voters. But Democrats would have to give up their “mandate from the voters” in order to admit that scenario.

    So we bloggers will get two more years of foundering Democrats to point at and laugh.

  • Democrats push timetable

    According to an AP story in the DC Examiner the Democrats will push for a Fall ’08 withdrawal from Iraq;

    In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats announced Thursday that they will push legislation setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

    The Democratic plan, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, will bring an “orderly and responsible close” to American participation in Iraq’s “civil war.”

    Any other information they want to give al Qaida? And why did Democrats wait to announce this just as the President leaves the country for delicate talks with our allies to the South? Is this their way of undermining those efforts, too?

    Now the Islamic world can just sit back and relax, rebuild and train; they have the schedule. And I wonder why Democrats chose Fall of 2008 as their exit date. What’s happening then?  Why didn’t they really display their cojones and push for Fall 2007? Maybe because Iraq would be bathed in fire by the time elections rolled around if they had and they’d have to admit that they don’t know squat about dealing with terrorists during an election.

    The Washington Post writes about the anguished Democrats;

    Even in her conservative Kansas district, calls and letters to freshman House Democrat Nancy Boyda show a constituency overwhelmingly ready for U.S. troops to come home from Iraq.

    Yet as the House nears a legislative showdown on the war, Boyda finds herself wracked with doubts. She is convinced that Congress must intervene to stop the war, but is fearful of the chaos that a quick U.S. pullout could prompt. “Congress has an obligation to do something,” Boyda said. But she is unsure what to do, worried about anything that “affects commanders on the ground.”

    Yeah, I can see how much they care about the commanders on the ground.

    Meanwhile, attacks in Iraq are down 80% according to the World Tribune. i wonder if attacks down because they know they can just wait us out – or wait Congress out.

  • Coup attempt in Venezuela, Iran general defects

    Things have started going our way, apparently. First a short blurb from UPI announcing that a Guardia Nacional officer (not the same as our National Guard, by the way) has been arrested for plotting the overthrow of Ooooo-go Chavez;

    A Venezuelan National Guard general was arrested on charges that he planned the overthrow of President Hugo Chavez, Globovision TV reported Wednesday.
    Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila was arrested Tuesday, according to Venezuelan officials, on charges he had plotted to overthrow and kill Chavez.

    Good news because, generally speaking, in Latin America, if the Army doesn’t approve of what a political leader is doing, that leader either reforms his ways or there’s a new leader. If this General Davilla was popular among the troops, it could stir up some trouble for Oooogo.

    And from the Washington Post, by way of Captain’s Quarters, I read that the missing Iranian general Ali Rez Asgari is in the company of US intelligence agents and singing like a Spring robin;

     Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari’s background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran’s national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country’s nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel’s Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

    These are important events that may trigger a more successful near-term future in our war against tyrannts and terrorists.

  • Getting stuff off my chest today

    Nothing going on today – except that Congress is having global warming hearings while the global warming is clogging our streets here in DC. Maybe they should schedule hearings in July when they might be more convincing.

    I guess everyone is mad that Ann Coulter insinuated that John Edwards might be a “faggot” (her word, not mine). I’ve been reading about it everywhere. Everyone seems mighty upset about it. But I haven’t seen anyone say that he’s not. Wonder why.

    And some goofus was smuggling a big magnet in his rectum on a cross-country flight. A magnet and some wires. And his bags went on the flight without him. I don’t care if he was doing something illegal or not, he’s up to something that no one else I know would be up to – he bears watching. He’s coming your way, Philly.

    Thank goodness the Libby trial is over. It gives the Washington Post something to put on the front page besides trashing Walter Reed. Paul Kane couldn’t help but mention it in his blog, though. Today he’s cheering on the “victorious” Democrats and their 81 (so far) oversight hearings on the Iraq War. I guess that the Democrats have been doing so much backpedaling on thier campaign promises, they need a cheerleader sometimes.

    “America voted for change in November. This is just the beginning,” Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a member of the Democratic leadership, declared in a Tuesday morning House floor speech. “What a difference a year makes.”

    How’s that Rahm? What difference is there in Congress? Just different incoherent yammering is all.

    Meanwhile, the President is delivering the good news from Iraq to the people since the Mainstream Media won’t.

    Spoke too soon; the Washington Post couldn’t help themselves. They had to put a Walter Reed story on the front page at 1:32 pm. Sure, it’s the same Dole/Shalala story recyled from yesterday…I guess they felt naked without it. What a bunch of…oh, look at the time – I’m late for rehab.

  • British point finger at Iran

    From the London Sunday Telegraph by way of the Washington Times;

    A missile that brought down a Royal Air Force Lynx helicopter and killed five British service members was smuggled into Iraq by Iranian agents, an official inquiry into the attack will reveal.
        The Sunday Telegraph has learned that a British Army Board of Inquiry (BOI) into the events surrounding the May attack will state that the weapon, a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile known as an SA14 Strella, came from Iran.
        The attack, which was responsible for the death of Flight Lt. Sarah Mulvihill, the first British servicewoman to be killed on active service since World War II, appears to provide further evidence of Iran’s direct involvement in the deaths of British troops serving in Iraq.

    Ahmadinejad the Denier had better take stock of who he’s pissing off here. The Left can’t protect him from the neocons forever. Ask Saddam.